BSF pleased with year-on-year rise in NSL participation

Thu 20 Apr 2017

With National Softball League (NSL) play for 2017 due to start at the first Diamond Series tournament at Farnham Park on 13-14 May, the BSF has released figures showing the growth of this competition over the past few years.

The NSL, as a league competition for A-grade co-ed slowpitch teams, began in 2009, but by 2013, the number of players registered on the NSL database was only 91, with fewer teams participating than when the competition started.

However, this rose to 114 players in 2014 and 151 players in 2015 as the number of teams grew.

In 2016, NSL 2, a tournament-based competition for B-grade teams, began, and the number of players on the NSL database jumped to 225.

In 2017 however, with the maximum number of 12 teams signed up to both NSL 1 and NSL 2 for league-based competition, there are currently 305 players on the NSL database with seven teams still to register players.

The BSF looks forward to the time when the National Softball League concept can be further rolled out to C-grade teams, which was part of the intention when the concept was first developed.